


Payback's A Bitch (But I Like It)

by kkscatnip (autohaptic)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anal Sex, Character of Color, Comeplay, Community: smut_fest, Foot Fetish, Gags, Multi, Oral Fixation, Psychic Abilities, Threesome - M/M/M, Tricksters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-03
Updated: 2012-03-03
Packaged: 2017-11-03 16:11:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/383397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autohaptic/pseuds/kkscatnip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A trickster spirit with really juvenile humor trying for the attention of someone who is just completely nonplussed by everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Main story

**Author's Note:**

> Two thank-yous: To Veda for the wonderfully thorough beta, and to Nicole for letting me thrash out exactly where I was going with this. I don't think I would have finished in time without her friendly ear, and the fic would definitely not be as good without the beta. <3 to you both!

_"Jacob!"_ Aiden called, both aloud and in my head, from up in the bedroom.

Oh hell, I thought. _"Yeah?"_ I was already getting up from the kitchen table, heading for the stairs and taking them two at a time. Aiden was too short for that, but I was nearly a foot taller than him so it wasn't hard for me.

"Bob's glued the door shut. Again."

"Why am I not surprised?" I asked and sighed, finally reaching our bedroom door. I put my palm against it, and everything that had happened to the door in the last day or so flashed through my mind at warp speed. After that it was just a matter of focusing in on the last time the door had opened: twenty minutes ago, when Aiden came through it, dripping wet from the shower.

Bob must have shut it when he glued it; for a being with no physical form, he found his ways to be a giant cock. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and returned the door to twenty minutes ago, when there was no glue on it. I opened it up to see Aiden standing there looking adorable, short and freckled and his red hair unruly even when it was wet from the shower.

_You're no fun_ , Bob said in our heads.

_Neither are you,_ Aiden shot back, scowling, and pushed past me.

_He wouldn't do it so much if you didn't get so riled up about it,_ I sent to Aiden--just him, not including Bob.

Aiden turned on his heel, graceful as the dancer that he was. "It's like you're on his side."

It was an old argument. "You know I'm not."

_One of these days,_ Aiden sent, just to me, _I am going to let him loose, and_ you _will get angry for a change._

Not bloody likely, I thought to myself, just shaking my head at him and going back to eating my breakfast. He was no more going to let Bob loose to wreak havoc than he would fly to the moon.

###

The shitty thing about saving the world in this day and age was that most people didn't know or care about what we had done. But at the same time, it was the nice thing about saving the world in this day and age: we could just go back to what we were doing before, and nobody would even realize that Aiden and I were heroes.

We could go back to our normal, everyday lives now that the big baddie had been contained.

Not defeated. There was really no way to defeat this one, as the spirit--they called him a god in the good old days--was as old as time itself and my fucking-with-time powers were limited to a day or so. But he was contained, thanks to Aiden's spirit-controlling powers. He was a zillion times stronger than me.

So we saved the world five years ago, when we were both sixteen, and then we went back to what we were doing before... with the addition of one trickster spirit who was only be able to work his powers on Aiden and I and a combination of warning and threats from the government about what would happen if knowledge of his existence got out.

It could have been a hell of a lot worse.

###

Bob sometimes demanded that we call him things like Mike Hunt and Heywood Jablome, or sometimes Hugh Jass. Homer Sexual would have been funny if Aiden and I were straight, but as it was the one time he tried that the both of us burst out laughing and kept on laughing for a good ten minutes or so while Bob tried to convince us how sincere he was about changing his name.

We were in tears by the end of it, holding our sides and gasping, and Bob was angry as a cat in a rainstorm.

He didn't try Homer Sexual anymore after that, which was a disappointment, but I learned by then that you had to play the hand you were dealt.

###

I was sitting underwater, flirting with a merman. I sat cross-legged, and my dreadlocks float around my head like kelp.

The merman smiled at me again; he was handsome, similar in coloring to Aiden but not similar in facial structure or size. He was easily twice as big as me, though he was light to my dark and he didn't sit, instead swimming circles around me.

I thought vaguely about trying to talk him into a threesome with Aiden, if only Aiden could find a way to get beneath the waves. I had grown gills, myself, which seemed to be perfectly normal and logical, though I knew that Aiden could not grow gills himself.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

I sat up in bed, eyes wide.

Alarm.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

It was just the alarm. Aiden was sleeping through it, of course; he could sleep through a hurricane.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

I reached over and turned on the lamp, but nothing happened. No light, just the same dim glow of the streetlight filtered through translucent curtains.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

Careful not to trip on something or stub my toe, I climbed out of bed and tried to figure out where the sound was coming from. The other side of the room?

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

The dresser. Bob had put it in the dresser this time, I thought, and navigated around the bedroom with care. I didn't hurry; I was already awake, and Aiden was unlikely to wake up, so there was little point.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

Sock drawer. It was 3:14 am, the numbers cool, luminescent blue in the darkness, reminding me of the light through the water in my dream.

I turned the damn thing off and then took out the batteries before collapsing back into bed and closing my eyes, hugging my pillow. Aiden _would_ wake up if I tried to cuddle him.

Hopefully the handsome merman would be waiting for me when I got back to sleep, and we could figure out a way to get Aiden down on the floor of the sea with us.

###

"Jacob."

I blinked blearily at the sound of my name. I'd had a lot of trouble getting back to sleep after the alarm, and the merman had not been waiting for me after all. If I dreamed again before Aiden woke up at eight, I didn't remember it.

Now, at five in the evening, keeping my eyes open was a struggle. More so when I was sitting on our big, comfortable couch.

_"Jacob,"_ Aiden said again, making the word echo in my mind.

I really should have taken a nap. "Mmm?"

"I think--" Aiden started, but cut off suddenly, looking toward the front door.

Someone was knocking at the door. I blinked a few more times, shaking my head. "Where's Bob?" It was up to us whether we told people about our powers or not; Bob was the one thing we had to make sure we kept a secret from the outside world. I could just imagine the chaos it would cause if people realized that they were in constant danger from not-so-benevolent spirits.

A wide-eyed shake of the head was all I got from Aiden.

If I had been more than half-awake, I probably would have been panicking. "What?"

"I can't feel him anywhere around," Aiden said, in an undertone that whoever was at the door wouldn't hear.

The binding on him would hold whether or not Aiden could feel Bob--he had designed it that way on purpose, so Bob couldn't go make trouble if he got away from us--that wasn't a problem. It was just a shock that he'd left; he'd vowed not to rest until we let him go.

Knock, knock, knockknockknock. Whoever it was at the door, they were getting impatient. I pushed myself up, now much more awake than I had been before by sheer virtue of terror, and went over and opened the door.

A short--even shorter than Aiden--medium-toned brunet stood there, hands in his pockets, head tilted to the side slightly and an expression on his face that told me exactly who he was. Oh hell no, I thought. "Aiden's going to push you right out of that poor kid's body."

"This _poor kid_ would be dead if I hadn't possessed him and gotten him out of the way of that truck. He thanked me, I will have you know; I have loan of his body for as long as I want."

Huh. I just stood there staring, because this did not compute. Bob saved someone's life?

Five years shouldn't have been enough time for him to wear away at the boundaries, either. Unless he had possessed the kid specifically to fuck with us, in which case it might get through on technicalities.

"Oh," was the only thing I could come up with to say. Maybe I wasn't quite as awake as I thought.

Aiden rescued me. "I'm still going to press you out of that boy's body; nobody deserves to be talked into possession."

"He knows about me," Bob-in-the-boy said, raising his eyebrows. The boy he was possessing had a fair bit of Asian blood, going by his eyes. "And he gave me his word that he would tell every news station he could that I existed; he writes for his college paper, too."

Fuck. I looked at Aiden and he looked at me; we both bit our lips.

Bob inhaled deeply. "Ahh. I love the smell of blackmail in the evening. Now, let me in, please; it's rather cold out here and Joel here wasn't dressed for being out as long as I've had him out."

I moved out of the way, looking at Aiden, who just shook his head. _We'll just have to go along with it for now,_ he sent to me, keeping it a private message in case Bob could still pick up on psychic things.

_That's what I'm afraid of,_ I replied.

Meanwhile Bob headed straight for the kitchen, opened up the freezer, and pulled out our container of homemade brownie batter ice cream. He declared that he'd been dying to try it and grabbed a spoon to dig right in, not bothering with a bowl.

Aiden's expression said that my fear was justified.

###

"I hate you all," Bob said from the bathroom, his voice somewhere between a growl and a sigh.

There was no possible way that it could be our fault that Bob had failed to heed Joel's warnings that he was lactose intolerant, but Bob blamed us because we were there. It was an old game.

_You're sure you can bounce him out of that form?_ I asked Aiden 

Aiden gave me an annoyed glare. _Yes, for the thousandth time. If not for the blackmail, I'd have him out of there in a heartbeat._

It was comforting to know that we could still own Bob if we needed to. _Good._

_I wonder if you've thought about where he'll be sleeping tonight,_ Aiden sent. He was a planner, someone who always looked ahead.

_We have a perfectly adequate couch._ It was the first place that came to mind. Back when we had just been friends, after we saved the world but before we'd started dating, it was where I had slept; this was originally Aiden's place, gifted to him by the government for getting rid of a host of poltergeists that had been tormenting the nearby Fort McCain, where he had lived with his parents until the poltergeist killed them.

Aiden smiled, shaking his head. _If you think he's going to tolerate sleeping on the couch, I am amazed at your capability for self-deception._

He was right, damn him.

"I'm going to take a shower," Bob announced; we heard the flush of a toilet and then the spray of the shower being turned on.

At least it gave us a little more time to plan. _Why would he want a physical body anyway?_

_I can think of a few reasons, but you won't like them._

My chest was tight and my brain locked up. There were not words that would express how vehemently I did _not_ want to talk about this; I didn't give Aiden any response, instead retreating to the bedroom and flopping down on our bed.

Right now we had the striped light pink sheets on it. I never liked them, but they had been on clearance and we'd needed a spare set, and Aiden said he didn't mind the pink. Now that I was thinking on spare sets: we needed to change them later this week. Good riddance.

Thinking of the minute details helped me loosen up a little, enough that I could peer sidelong at the idea of Bob having a physical body without feeling like I was verging on a panic attack. Always a plus, that.

"He can do less damage this way," Aiden said, from the doorway.

Probably reading my thoughts again, though I know he tried not to; I didn't mind it. "Does it take a lot of his power to possess someone, you think?"

Aiden walked over to the bed, shrugging and sitting down in the middle, his butt next to my hips as I stretched out. "I think it might be about all he is capable of right now. He feels..." Aiden made a gesture with his hand, like he was trying to grip something and failing. "He feels less substantial when he's like this. Compared to usual, I mean."

That was a relief, if nothing else. I shifted, looping my arm around Aiden's waist and pulling him into an awkward side-hug. "I'll take the couch, if he demands the bed." I was fairly sure there was no way that I was going to be able to sleep in the same bed with Bob, even if it was an antique, king-sized behemoth of a bed. I was a light sleeper, the polar opposite of Aiden's sleep-through-anything-as-long-as-no-one-touches-me.

We both tensed up when we heard the spray stop. My fingers dug into Aiden's hip a little, and he gripped my arm in response. But neither of us told the other to knock it off, and as the minutes ticked by and Bob didn't show up naked or something in the doorway we began to relax. Not a lot, just to where we weren't going to leave marks if we kept it up anymore.

I think Bob showing up in the doorway with a towel on was more of a shock to us than if he'd shown up naked with the guy's dick bouncing all around or something. But he just stood there with his towel and his smirk, one hand on the top edge of the towel, thumb hooked inside. "Well don't you two look sweet."

Before Aiden could respond, I broke in with, "Just do whatever you're going to do and be done with it."

Bob screwed up his face and shook his head. "I guess I can see why you two would think I am evil, but really, I'm not."

Aiden looked at him deadpan. "Save it for someone who will actually believe it."

Now Bob scowled, crossing his arms over his chest. "Well, fine then, I guess we'll proceed to the main event--I want to fuck you. Both of you."

Bob had never seemed interested in our sex life before. The one time we could almost always count on him not interfering was when we made love, though sometimes smoke alarms went off or the doorbell was rung. So he couldn't have blindsided us harder even if he was try--well, he probably _was_ trying, so he did a damn good job. Both Aiden and I stared at him blankly for... I don't even know how long.

Long enough that Bob got impatient and unwrapped the towel from around his waist and walked over. "Who's first?"

_He sounds serious._ I shifted my hand, splaying my fingers, unconsciously pulling Aiden back against me tighter.

Thankfully Aiden was only a few steps behind me in recovering from the shock. _I can't even... just like that?_ "You can't expect us to just... offer ourselves. No foreplay or anything."

Good point. I wished I had thought of that, but my mind was stuttering along too much for clear thought. _Do you have a plan?_

Aiden looked down at me, self-assured expression on his face. _Of course. Just follow my lead._

Which meant, right now, trying to get Bob to do the foreplay thing, I guessed. "Yeah. Get our motors going first, Bob. And yours." I motioned to Bob's flaccid cock, a few shades more dark and red than the amber shade of the rest of his skin, nestled in pubes so dark they were nearly black.

This time his scowl actually looked cute. God help me, I thought, and reached out to take his hand, my own brown skin not contrasting quite as well as it did with Aiden's ginger-pale skin. "Come over on the other side, hmm? I'll show you how to start."

I was beginning to see Aiden's idea, now that my mind was doing more than stuttering along: the likelihood of him being able to maintain corporeal form for very long was low, so the longer we kept him entertained, the better.

Instead of going around the bed, Bob crawled over me, pausing to brush his balls over my mouth. I didn't react at all, though, and he lost interest. "I know how to start. I've watched you two plenty times."

Despite his declaration, Bob seemed like he was at a loss once he settled down onto his knees on the other side of me. He kind of looked helplessly at my face, then at Aiden's, and said, "Well, maybe you should start. I don't want to make some kind of faux pas."

You are so transparent, I thought, but didn't let the thought carry outside of my head. I glanced at Aiden to see that he was looking at me expectantly. My move, then. I leaned up on one elbow and reached my other hand out to cup it behind the back of Bob's neck and pull him down for a kiss.

He was not a good kisser, and if I hadn't been laying perpendicular to the way he was sitting I have a feeling that our noses would have bumped. If he told me it wasn't his first time ever kissing someone, I wouldn't have believed him. Bob was a fast learner, if nothing else, and as we continued kissing he began to emulate me, swirling his tongue around mine and scooting closer to me, leaning down farther, one hand planted on the other side of me to keep himself from falling over.

Aiden didn't say anything, but just taking a blind shot in the dark I didn't guess he was too bothered. It was his idea, number one. Number two: We did this kind of thing pretty often, romancing another guy and fucking him--at the guy's place, always--though none of them had lasted in the face of hiding the biggest secret of our lives.

I pushed Bob away gently, when I could feel Aiden shifting next to me impatiently, and opened my eyes in time to see Aiden kissing Bob in turn.

Joel was a hot guy, I have to say. He was built pretty similar to Aiden, compact and sleek but every curve of his body was pure muscle, going by the hardness I felt under my fingertips as I traced my fingers over his skin; he could probably jump three feet straight up in the air the way Aiden could. I liked watching the way the muscles underneath his bronze skin shifted as he leaned toward Aiden. Absently I wished Aiden were naked so I could watch his cock get hard by degrees; the way he was kissing said that he was turned on rather than weirded out, which was suspect but I wasn't going to halt the proceedings to question him.

That thought in mind, I stripped off my shirt, unbuttoned my jeans, and shimmied out of them. I didn't wear the skintight bullshit that was what was in style, so I didn't have to worry about the effort of forcibly peeling my clothes off the way Aiden did.

By the time I was naked Bob was turned to face me, hunger in his eyes. It was a bit disconcerting to see that and realize that there wasn't a trick to it. Or was there? I couldn't keep my mind on that for very long, though.

I let him kiss me again, this time sliding my fingers through his dark hair and pulling him on top of me, his knees straddling my hips, my hand pressing into the small of his back to force his torso down against mine. I felt Aiden stand, and heard the sound of cloth moving over skin.

I opened my eyes to look over at him as he stripped, only half my mind on kissing, gladly favoring him to Bob. I always loved watching the muscles under Aiden's freckled shoulders, the pert curve of his ass, and finally his bare feet. Always last, and he turned to me with his socks in his hand and sniffed them.

Without meaning to, I broke the kiss with a moan, arching up against Bob, who pressed me down against the bed like he meant it. It would have made my knees weak, had I been standing, but as it was it made me shudder happily and wrap both arms around him, pressing his hips down against mine.

"Mmm, you both look so delicious," Aiden said as he padded toward the bed.

Bob was watching him, too, and I couldn't decide between looking at those strong thighs, the cock that swung slightly with the steps he took, or the sock still in his hand like a promise. He put it on the nightstand, then crawled behind Bob and leaned over him, pressing him down against me, and pushed Bob's head out of the way so that he could press his lips against mine.

I kissed back eagerly, arching even though they were keeping me thoroughly pinned, wanting even though the sex was going to go exactly where Aiden wanted it to go, exactly _when_ Aiden wanted it to go there. Unless Bob decided to take charge, but he seemed too off-center at the moment for that, I thought. My breath was shaky, and I had to break the kiss to drag in deep breaths, but Aiden wouldn't let me go, and caught my chin in his grip and kissed me again.

My cock throbbed helplessly against Bob's, as Aiden with the sure touch of his hands on Bob's hips showed Bob how to rock his hips, how to get the right combination of heat and friction to make me groan, breaking the kiss again, head going back as I gasped for breath.

"See, Jacob's easy," he said, smugly.

Bob's cheeks were flushed as he nodded, looking over his shoulder at Aiden for a moment and then back down at me. "What else does he like?"

Like he hadn't watched Aiden and me have sex tons of times. But I guessed he hadn't really been paying attention before; he'd never shown any interest in sex that I had ever seen, a fact that I was more grateful for than I could say. It ended with two attractive guys pinning me to the bed, the less experienced rubbing his cock against mine, while the more experience started to talk about all the things I liked--how could I complain about that?

"He likes oral contact of all sorts--a bit of an oral fixation, although that is more him doing it than you doing it; he likes getting this kind of friction better than blow jobs. He also likes being held down--comes from being somewhat submissive, as you can see--and his nipples are _very_ sensitive."

Aiden paused, looking down at me, and I could see him trying to decide whether to tell Bob about the feet thing or not. Bob might figure it out on his own, if he hadn't aready, and then use it for future pranks, but that would be different from Aiden just telling him about it. I saw the moment when he decided against saying anything, and leaned down to kiss me instead.

I kissed back like my life depended on it, so grateful I could cry. Maybe I did, a little, because when Aiden broke the kiss he reached up and wiped my eyes with his thumbs, kissed each of my cheeks, and said to Bob, "Turn around."

He pulled away, then, and all of the sudden there wasn't any more friction and Bob was looking at Aiden like he was confused.

"I mean... put your head where your cock is, and your cock where your head is. So he can suck it."

"Oh," Bob said, comprehending, and did what Aiden told him.

I went for his cock immediately, not having any problem with it given the angle and the fact that it wasn't huge. Mine was, but I liked to bottom, mostly, so it didn't matter much.

Aiden did me a favor, too, and kept Bob's mouth busy so he wouldn't try sucking me off, showing him how to use his hands instead. I closed my eyes, my own hands going up to bring Bob's thighs closer in against my face, so I could feel the muscle trapping my head there as I sucked and sucked and sucked. Deep throating, a light scrape of teeth, licking up one side and down the other--I did it all. I loved doing it all, and could feel the way the muscles in Bob's thighs were getting more and more tense.

Even so, his orgasm hit me like a bit of a surprise. It took me a moment to figure out I ought to be swallowing, so half of the come leaked out of my mouth and the other half went down my throat the way it should.

I flopped back against the pillows, panting, eyes closed. Bob and Aiden were moving and Aiden was rubbing fingers over my face and then putting them in my mouth. I realized all of the sudden that he was feeding me the rest of the come, and gave a little puff of laughter before I cleaned his fingers off. He didn't like come very much, himself, but he knew I loved it so he indulged me.

While I was laying there recovering, somebody started up jacking me off again. They'd been doing it all through the blow job, but I had relegated it to background noise. Now it was front and center, and the coil of arousal in the pit of my stomach was wound tight.

All over again I was breathless. Blind and half-panicked I reached down, shoving Bob's hands away. Had to be Bob; if it was Aiden, he could have made me come in thirty seconds when I was that close.

I didn't want to come so soon. I was never good for a second round, and I wanted to come while I was getting fucked.

By Bob? Maybe.

Aiden kissed one of my cheeks. _Do you want me or him?_

Can't I have both? I wanted to ask, but that wasn't one of my choices. _Bob,_ I decided, after realizing that if Aiden fucked me it would leave Bob free to make mischief at a time when I really didn't want him doing that.

Without a word, Aiden reached under the bed and pulled out the fancy box where we kept the condoms and lube and our toys. And the duct tape; when I saw him pull that out along with a condom and lubricant, it made my cock jump and my breath catch, my eyes flickering to the sock that he had set aside earlier. He set the duct tape aside, too, right next to the sock before putting the box back under the bed.

Shaking a little, I drew my knees up to my chest, lacing my arm behind them to hold them in place. I didn't trust myself to be able to hold my legs apart all on my own. Besides that I liked the scrunched-up feeling, and the way the tops of my thighs pressed against my cock, _and_ the way that the position made it a little harder to breathe.

Aiden was speaking softly to Bob, showing him how to drip the lubricant onto his fingers and rub them together with his thumb to warm it up a little bit. Bob had a look of concentration on his face that I wouldn't have credited. "Then what?"

"Then you just push them in. He can take two fingers; don't worry."

My breath hissed out between my teeth as Bob shoved two fingers in all at once. He didn't wait or anything, skipping straight to pistoning them in and out, which made my head go back and eyes squeeze shut, pain mingling with the pleasure to confuse my nerve endings. I wasn't a masochist.

Meanwhile Aiden climbed up the bed and straddled my face, his knees pointing toward Bob, and shoved his cock down my throat.

If ever there were a way to make me like pain, this was it. I sucked his cock obligingly, if a little awkwardly because it was hard to use my abs to lift myself up when they were all scrunched up. Aiden reached behind him to pet my dreadlocks, his fingers stealing between them to rake his fingernails gently over my scalp. I caught his eyes, once, as he pulled back to let me catch my breath.

My cock was throbbing, leaking hot fluid onto my stomach, and the feeling of Bob finger-fucking me was pleasurable now. He evidently had been watching at some point, because he did it the way Aiden did, slow and searching, fingers curling, and then fast, straight-fingered.

I was going to come at this rate. "Aiden--" but I had no idea what protest to make.

He knew what I meant, though; one of the benefits of being with the same person for many years, I guessed. "Ready to fuck him, Bob?"

Bob looked up suddenly, like he hadn't realized that this was what the finger-fucking was leading to. "Can I?"

Aiden shrugged. "If you don't want to, I'd be glad to do it."

The look on Bob's face said no even before he opened his mouth to say it. Aiden crawled over to the foot of the bed to show him how to put on the condom, then helped him line everything up. He pulled my arm out from behind my legs and arranged them on Bob's shoulders instead, then turned and picked up the sock and the duct tape.

My breath caught. My eyes went wide. My heart skipped a few beats.

"Don't want you screaming to the whole neighborhood," he said, mildly.

I kind of had a reputation, rightly earned, and I knew what was coming, as I had from the moment Aiden had pulled out the duct tape. I couldn't find any words to respond, just opening my mouth and letting him shove the sock in and the tape over it. My eyes rolled back and I groaned, but the sock stole the sound.

It tasted like Aiden's feet. Not bad, not good. Just Aiden taste. Aiden's feet.

Bob pushed into me with the same care that he had shown with fingering me and it was mere seconds before he was fucking me at a good clip. But I didn't, couldn't, complain; Aiden was already sitting even with my hips, reaching out with his feet and clasping my cock between them. The bottoms of his feet were smooth but hard, calloused from dancing, and it was the last piece of the puzzle to make me scream into the sock gag as I came.

I shook myself apart while I shot so hard that I had come from chin to abs, red-hot little spurts that only made me moan again, shuddering, gripping the blankets as Bob continued to fuck me.

"So--so tight," he gasped, and did not stop, continuing right through my orgasm. It was another thing, another level of pleasure, and I think I lost a few minutes because I don't remember Bob coming. When I felt like paying attention to the world again, it was Aiden fucking me, leaning over me and playing with my nipples as he did.

I groaned into the gag, chest arching up even if it wasn't going to make me come. It still felt good; it was still Aiden; I had always loved the sight of his pale hands against my dark skin, the beautiful contrast.

He didn't last much longer, finding my lips with his for a moment before pulling away, pumping into me twice more and then stilling, all but collapsing on top of me.

Bob, off to the side, said something, but it was sleepy and unintelligible. When I looked over, his eyes were shut. Aiden's were too; I wrapped one arm around him and pulled the gag off with the other, throwing it off the bed as I rolled onto my side and nuzzled my face against Aiden's.

Aiden hummed softly, nuzzling me in return, putting one boneless arm around me and then dropping right to sleep. The only times he could sleep with somebody touching him were right after sex.

I must have dozed off too, because I woke up when Aiden nudged me. "Hey."

"Hey yourself," I whispered, and kissed him. Gentle. Not a sex-kiss, just an I-love-you kiss.

He just hummed happily and shifted so he could bury his face in my chest instead.

Of course Bob had to go and ruin everything: _Was it as good as you thought it would be?_

I stiffened, and Aiden did too. But he didn't say 'What the fuck are you talking about' or anything, because Bob asking that was just so... _weird_. He showed no interest in our sex life; why start now? _What?_

_Aiden's idea._ Bob's mental laugh was creepy as it always had been, and the fact that he was doing it like this meant that he hadn't been able to maintain his possession--just like I'd thought..

"What?" Although I already had a clue what we were talking about, even if I really didn't want to have any clue what they were talking about.

"I had to do something," Aiden said, but he sounded small, scared.

All at once I knew exactly what had happened. "It didn't weaken at all. You let him off his leash."

"Joel--"

"Do you have _any_ idea how wrong that could have gone?" I was finding my anger now, crawling out of bed, going for my robe, the cream-colored terrycloth one on the back of the bedroom door.

"Joel agreed to the whole thing. I wanted--"

"If you wanted a threesome, you could have just _asked_ ," I said, venomous, pulling my robe on with jerky movements. "You didn't have to pull this bullshit."

"Maybe you're right," Aiden said, and sighed. He sat there on the bed, looking over his shoulder at the sleeping Joel. A grin was playing on his lips by the time he looked away. "But I think it was worth it to find a prank that finally bothered you."

"I'm sleeping on the couch," I growled, and left him to his conquest.

###

When I went up to the bedroom the next morning, Joel was awake, laying there looking at Aiden.

I didn't smile at him. "If you touch him, he'll wake up."

"Or I could just push him to wake up."

There was something in the way he said it that pulled at my mind. I was missing something. "Push him?"

"You know, push things into his head. People don't have to be awake to be influenced. I could wake him up horny, if you wanted."

"He'll be horny anywa--" There it was.

This was why Aiden thought that he had the whole thing under control: Joel was like us, talented. Gifted. Only his gift was persuasion, the ability to make people do whatever the fuck he wanted. It sounded like he didn't even have to talk to do it, either.

If that was his power, there was no way Bob could have made him do anything, no way... so many things. Aiden really did have the whole thing under control.

And I was a jerk for not trusting him.

"I didn't mean to throw a monkey wrench in things," Joel said, softly.

God, what an idiot I was. "It's okay. Or it will be, anyway." I leaned over and touched Aiden's shoulder.

He gave a sleepy murmur, rolled over, and opened his eyes. "Mmmm. G'morning."

Joel smiled brightly at him. "Good morning."

"Good morning," I added. An uncomfortable silence fell, then, wherein I am pretty sure nobody could think of anything to say. Aiden seemed to pick up on the fact that I wasn't angry anymore, at least, so that was good. I wondered if Joel expected us to... well, might as well say it. "Don't worry, Joel. You don't have to fuck us."

Aiden yawned. "Again."

Joel laughed first, me second, and Aiden third; he always was reluctant to laugh at his own jokes. By the time the laughter trailed off, the air wasn't thick with tension anymore.

All of the sudden a wave of want hit me; my cock was instantly hard--what a painful thing--and I was moving toward Joel before I knew what was happening.

Or we could just fuck him anyway, because he obviously wants us to, I thought to myself. The arousal backed off a little.

It was amazing how much fun it was to just sit there and trade kisses. Kiss Aiden, have Joel suck my nipples; kiss Joel, have Aiden jack me off; watch them kiss and suck Joel while I awkwardly try and masturbate Aiden.

We were just starting to go beyond the fun stage when--

BAAANT BAAANT BAAANT BAAANT

Fucking Bob, I thought, and went to figure out which smoke alarm he had set off.


	2. Bonus tidbits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bits and bobs that I wrote as replies to the story.

“What's your name?” I asked, as bravely as I could. Trickster gods—spirits, whatever—weren't something to fuck with, even if it seemed like my new best friend had him contained.

Aiden's brows furrowed. “I can't make him tell us.”

 _It's because I don't have a name, stupid_ , the trickster sent, sullen as a child.

That really wasn't going to work at all. “We have to call you something.”

 _Names are things for humans. If you want me to have a name, you have to name me; that's the way it works_ , he explained, with the air of the long-suffering, as someone who had explained the same thing a bunch of times before.

“Bob,” Aiden said, with finality.

I bit my lip a moment to keep from laughing, wondering if Aiden was a bit of a trickster himself. “We can't name a trickster spirit Bob. He'd never forgive us.”

Aiden rolled his eyes. He looked kind of cute when he did that, but he probably wasn't gay, so I kept my opinion to myself, and Aiden said, “What does he care? The name will die with us, and he will be free again, and someone else will name him something badass like Loki or Anansi or Coyote or whatever.”

It was a good point. “Well, okay, then. C'mon, Bob, time to get out of here.”

 _You have to be debriefed first, of course_ , Bob said, and I turned to see someone who looked distinctly official picking their way through the wreckage of the state building toward us.

Man, I was really starting to hate these government guys telling us what to do all the time.

\---

Aiden didn't wear shoes at home, and he wore socks rarely. He said he liked to feel the floor under his feet, and that was all well and good, but it didn't help the fact that I was having dreams at least once a night of, like, Aiden making me kiss his feet.

Or wash them. Or massage them. Or put socks on. Fuck, I'd always known I'd liked feet, but socks? That was just weird.

Well, you're a psychic boy who can mess with with time. You aren't going to be normal, so get over it. And I did, sure enough. 

#####

"How did you save the world, anyway?" Joel asked.

I knew it was coming sooner or later, as human curiosity knew no bounds. As it was, I found myself just being glad that it had taken Joel all of a month and seven sleepovers to work himself up to asking.

Aiden, who was draped across Joel and my laps as we half-assedly watched TV, yawned and squirmed until his ass was on the couch, then moved over and sat on the other side of Joel. He slid one arm around Joel's shoulders. They had an easy familiarity in their touch from the start—I was right, Joel was a dancer like Aiden—that made me smile.

"It started when this poltergeist killed my parents." Sadness came into Aiden's expression, but only for a moment. "I banished the poltergeist and the government found out that I had, y'know, talent. So I pretty much became their own personal Ghost Busters."

"Only he was a one-man team instead of a four-man team," I said, breaking in. "Which was the way it stayed, until I fucked up one day in school and used my power in front of Aiden. I _thought_ nobody was around—some redneck had put glue on my locker's dial, so I couldn't spin it—but I was wrong, and Aiden saw it."

Aiden leered at me. "So I thought, you know, it would be pretty useful if I had somebody with me who could make objects go back in time. I didn't know the extent of his powers then, of course—" Objects were hardly the only thing I could make go back in time, though I manifestly did not like forcing anything but objects through time "—but the next time the government called on me, I called Jacob."

"It was like, a week later." I rolled my eyes skyward. To say Aiden was forward was a bit of an understatement. "But I'd never met anybody who had talent, other than my mom, so I was deathly curious about Aiden."

"We were sixteen, of course, and I think I had a crush on him as soon as he came over when I called him."

I grinned at him, at both of them. "Took us a while to figure it out."

Aiden grinned right back, and Joel too. "Yeah, but we're getting ahead of ourselves, right?"

"Right. So he called, I got my mom to drive me over here, and we got taken away by this limo like we were rockstars or something."

"I was used to it, but Jacob had to try everything and stick his head out the sunroof and all." 

"They asked about who I was before they let me in, but I think they probably quit listening as soon as they heard the word talent. The limo took us to this... well, it _used_ to be the state capital building."

Aiden scrunched up his nose. "It was still the state capital building. It was just, y'know, scattered over a few blocks and all. And there were police cars and all, and they pretty much said, okay, so there's this trickster spirit, and he's wreaking havoc because some idiot let him out of the vault."

"Yep, the guy was pissed about it, too. Bob destroyed the vault—"

 _That thing was a nastier prison than you can imagine._ He spoke in all of our minds; Joel could handle that stuff too, the way most talented people could.

I had been wondering when Bob was going to speak up. "As you've told us over and over."

"He's just sore that they tricked him in there in the first place. Where were we?" Aiden looked at Joel, meaning the question to be for him.

"Bob destroyed the vault," Joel said.

_Good fucking riddance._

Aiden ignored Bob. "This part is kind of boring, because I had to explain to Jacob how to detect a spiritual presence, and we figured out that he's basically the worst sidekick a Ghost Buster can have because he can't do anything with spirits but talk to them after they talk to him."

"My talent is very much about the physical," I said with a shrug.

"So Jacob followed me around like a kitten and then some stuff happened and I, uh, contained Bob."

"That's _it_?" Joel asked, sitting up from his slouch, looking incredulously at Aiden, and then at me.

I gave him a helpless look. "We can't tell you exactly what happened."

"They had us swear we wouldn't, and they have a truth-knower who comes around once a year to ask us questions and make sure we're not going back on the deal. So, uh, if we did we'd be fucked. And they don't use me as a Ghost Buster anymore 'cause I can't keep a good eye on Bob if I'm trying to fight with some other spirit."

Joal groaned. "You guys are the worst."

Aiden grinned. "Yeah, well."

I shook my head at Aiden. "We're sorry, we really can't—"

"I believe you. It's just—you worked me up with the story! You made me think I was going to get something from hearing it."

"Well you did, didn't you?" I asked.

Joel's brows furrowed. "I _guess_. I mean, I heard about how you guys met. And I learned that it was love at first sight."

Aiden's grin was lewd at best. "What can I say? I know what I want, and I take it."

I looked at him sidelong. "So, uh, you feel like taking what you want again anytime soon? I think it's been long enough that I can get off again."

"Fucking rabbits you are. Both of you."

Aiden leaned across him, saying as he did, "You love it," and then pressing his lips against mine.

Joel didn't argue.

#####

I dream of mermen pretty often. Not always the same ones—they are as different as people are, not just in the faces but in their fins, the color and shape and placement and the ways they move—but I know somehow that they re all related.

That they all exist somewhere that is not here does not seem like an idea completely unfounded; if beings like Bob or even people like Aiden and Joel and I can exist, then surely somewhere there are mermen swimming in the deep, dreaming of me when I am also dreaming of them.

They seem as unsurprised by me as I am about them, though they are just as deathly curious as I.

We don't talk, not with words but with fins and drawn out notes that carry over great distances. There are no secrets in the ocean.

I know the language of the strange songs that they sing, like a cross between birds and whales; I sing with them, my notes as effortless as their own, and the great red-scaled one who I have dreamed of three times this month flicks the fins on his arms in a way that means he is happy.

Though it is a sign of aggression, the first thing that comes to my lips is a smile.

He touches my face gently and asks, in those long notes, that gorgeous song, why I am in his dreams.

I ask him why he is in mine.

Neither of us have an answer, but we needn't have one, I suppose; he kisses me.

On waking I wonder if Aiden and Joel dream of other places as well. Is it something unique to us, who are talented, to have our dreams connected with others who are likewise talented?

Or is it something that is all my own?

I don't ask them, on the chance that it is the latter; I do not want to share the mermen or the Pegasus or any of the other mythical creatures with Aiden and Joel. I share everything else with them, gladly.

This is my own. To hold in my heart, on the off chance that in the next life I am born into one of these worlds.

I wonder if there are Bobs there as well.


End file.
